A Dream of Quiet (IC)

[Tavar]

Nothing for me at the moment.

[Recaiden]

The waiter nods. "Thank you. We should have that fairly soon."
Of course, he goes to deliver the order to the cook, leaving the newly united exalts to converse.

[Tavar]

Wing switches to English once again.
Is a Chicago Meatlovers actually on the menu, or do you just not care?

[Rhyvurg]

"<Mostly I wanted to see how they handle it. And on the Blessed Isle there's maps of the entire world, from what I can tell this place is larger than the entire planet back home, and flat to boot. I bet there's a thousand cities these yokels have never heard of.>"

[aetherialDawn]

"<In my case, I just ordered it to see what they'd come up with. Besides, so long as we don't complain when they overcharge us a bit, we might get away with the foreigner thing, and it's a nice cover for talking in an odd language, don't you think? Interesting about the maps, though... How far out do they go?>"

[LauWren]

Amelia waves off the apology. "<Don't worry about it. I actually translated a bit back home. Er, home, not> home."

"<Mostly I wanted to see how they handle it. And on the Blessed Isle there's maps of the entire world, from what I can tell this place is larger than the entire planet back home, and flat to boot. I bet there's a thousand cities these yokels have never heard of.>"

"<Huh. I'd never considered the flat part. Cell phones would work amazingly well here. ...Of course, magic. I wonder how outlandish I'd have to make a story before it becomes unbelievable,>" she muses to herself.

[Tavar]

What do you mean by "how far". Plus, from what I understand, it's size is flexable. Tamuz said the world has shrunk since his day.

[Leliel]

What do you mean by "how far". Plus, from what I understand, it's size is flexable. Tamuz said the world has shrunk since his day.

<"Um just a question.">

<"I assume that by "shrunk", this Tamuz person means the Balorian Crusade. But if he also says "his day", that means he was old enough to witness it first hand.">

<"How old is he?">

[Tavar]

Primarily the crusade, but before that as well, I think. From what he told Wing, he remembers the Usurpation. Wouldn't guess it from his mannerisms, though.

[aetherialDawn]

"<Tammuz sounds interesting... Oh, and as for the maps, I suppose if I know how old the maps are and how far out they go, that might be useful.>"

Orchid glances around. He has some help from his Exaltation in convincing people, but it's still not his strong suit... But this is important, and there's not exactly a lot of conflict around the table. At least not yet.

"<The world shrinking fits with what I've been told, and it's probably going to continue, you see. We've been given incredible power; even if it's impossible now, nobody said we can't make it possible someday, one way or another. Isn't that what Luna is all about? I don't want to see the world shrink to nothing someday because I couldn't - or worse, just didn't - fix it. Especially if it's not just a matter of keeping the fairies out.>"

If he's starting to build a good model of the people around him, then Drake will speak up soon against that... But he always has room for surprise, something his patron lacks.

-----

(Internal Dialogue)

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That sounded important. What exactly are you planning? Do I need to watch for knives after that little speech?

I'll tell you when it's over. I don't think I'm in any extra danger, but watch Pyrus and Sparrow just in case. And it wasn't a speech, I just added a bit of flourish.

That might be worse, Orchid... Do you really trust these people?

Maybe.

You know, I was told most Defilers could be more hardhearted when it was called for.

I was told that I was chosen because, whatever I might lack, I could care about the things that were important. Besides, I thought you said I was acting too slowly to get into House Arbani.

Holding back on a plan is not the same as keeping your feelings in check and not spilling out secrets. These people actually have the power to mess up our plans.

[Tavar]

At mention of Luna's name, Wing becomes somewhat rigid, and the words tumble out of his mouth.
"<The Fickle Lady is...complicated. she is many-who-are-one. She is about...protecting isn't the right word. Nurturing, I guess. She...sorry. It's an issue I know a fair bit about.>"
Leaning back, a faint blush rises in his cheeks, which for some reason makes him appear all the more translucent. Licking his lips with an oddly forked tongue(to those who can see it), he continues a bit more sedately.
"<Keeping the faeries out is part of it, but there are other threats. The Underworld. Malfaes. Hell, even forces in Creation itself are a threat. But what do you have in mind.>"

[Drascin]

"<Really, I wouldn't call what I got "incredible power". More like a few useful magic tricks. I still got to go by my wits more than anything>" Drake says, with a bit of an eyeroll. Given the kind of stuff the Bureau faces every day, some overwhelming firepower would come in handy every now and then.

"<And yeah, it's nowhere near enough to keep the fairies out. They're about fifth in the "will likely blow up the world" list. The fact that I actually keep a bullet-pointed list should probably tell you enough of the kind of **** the world is in>" the Sidereal sighs. Probably sixth now, with these new Infernal Deathknights being discovered... "<So, anything that can lessen the supreme cluster**** would be welcome. Give us your pitch>"

[aetherialDawn]

"<I'm sorry for speaking about Luna that way... and, well, I don't have a plan yet, only ideas. But I found out today that we have six powerful people here - whatever you might say, Sparrow, you work for Heaven. Connections, influence, and especially knowledge - those are all power too. You have a list of threats to Creation? Then you had enough information to create it.>"

Orchid waves his hand, gesturing at the surroundings without being too flamboyant - so long as they're just foreign, they can hopefully slip under the radar a bit longer, but he's getting excited despite what Melodies said, supplementing speaking skill with energy and a dash of poetry.

"<We're in Gem! A glittering nexus of trade, free from the Realm, free from Lookshy, free from everyone, and still peaceful even while the rest of the world is withering away in war! If there's any place that could be the start of a glorious new Creation, it's Gem.
Thanks to our time on Earth, we know things and can think in ways that nobody in Creation has ever tried before. If we wanted, we could conquer the world with mass-produced guns - firedust is even more powerful than gunpowder ever was, but it's led to the stagnation of technology.
But why even go to war? We want to save the world, not crush it, and we know about electricity, engineering, computers, an entire Renaissance and beyond if we applied it. And so what if the materials are different here? That doesn't stop us from inventing anew, and I'm certain we can.
This world has been stagnant so long, and even now it's only changing for the worse in the fires of war - but we could be a jolt of life!>"

Orchid is starting to attract some actual attention now, he's sure - certainly, Melodies is getting agitated. So he cuts it short and lowers his voice slightly.

"<These are just my ideas, the tools that I see - but I was specifically chosen to be a master of science and magic. What were you all chosen for?>"

There's something... Oh, of course. The shift in gears is a bit abrupt.

"<Sparrow, I'd like to see that list sometime. The one of threats to Creation? I can only think of a couple off the top of my head, and I would have rated the Wyld up near one or two, so I need to know more.>"

[Tavar]

Wing waves the apologies aside."<No problem, and I honestly wasn't offended, just, well, talking. It's and interesting subject, learning about some of the beings. Wish Wing had asked more myself.>"

Leaning in, he takes a more subdued tone, focusing on Sparrow's declaration.
"<Honestly, we are powerful. Maybe we can't change much now, on our own, but patrons did not simply give us power. They gave use the ability to grow, to become more than we were. And in the meantime, well, who says we have to do it alone?>"

Turning to face Orchid, Wing thinks on his speech for a moment.
Guess this is like what Tamuz was talking about when he said the solars had their blindspot.

"<Introducing that is all well and good, but knowledge and power without stability are useless. Both were plentiful before the Usurpation, but when the solars fell they dragged creation down with them.

More importantly, Creation hasn't been stagnant. The Usurption was bad, but the Great Conjugation was worse. And then the Crusade happened. This isn't stagnation any more than the 'dark ages' were. This is recovery, and from a sharper brink than Europe walked away from. But the recovery is faltering. The Empress seemed to be the only thing holding the Realm together, so it's like the USSR collapsing without the US there to gather the pieces. If you have some idea of what to do, I'm all ears.

[Drascin]

"<Oh, yes, knowledge is a power on its own right, you won't get me arguing against that. But, to be honest, sometimes I'd give a lot to be able to supplement that knowledge with a Star Destroyer to bombard the Deathlords' asses>" Drake smirks, sighing.

He then lays his elbows on the table and leans on his hands, looking straight at Orchid. "<As for the other thing... there's a problem with that. Nothing we know from Earth applies here. I don't mean just the geography. I mean, the laws of physics here only work because there is a magic web with billions of jade spiders that takes care of causality and makes sure that when you drop a cup, it breaks into fragments instead of, say, tarantulas. And lightning doesn't happen because of the ionization of the atmosphere - it happens because a lightning god wills it>" he says, serious. "<So we'll be starting from zero. We do have the advantage of knowing about the scientific method, though, which should certainly help us find out how this place actually works. But it's not going to be easy, and we're not going to make many friends>" he finishes, looking around, to see how this has been received.

"<Plus, what Wing said. Creation is, right now, in kind of a complete disarray. Everyone is fighting everyone and being incredibly dumb and racist. You can't try to bring modern ideals on people that quickly. It'd cause a seriously nasty culture clash, with all the sociological problems that entails - people in Creation still have problems with the "don't kill thy neighbour" thing>" Here, Drake's voice goes a bit more dissertative. "<The fact that the greatest power figure in the world just up and left wasn't exactly good for recovery, either. Remember the years after the fall of the Roman Empire? We're kind of in those now>"

Despite his pessimism, though, Drake is obviously interested. But that is only expected of what could be called the sourest idealist ever.

[aetherialDawn]

Orchid keeps his tone under control; just foreign people discussing their foreign things while they wait for some slightly-overpriced Gem cuisine, nothing to worry about...

"<I'm not saying that we can wave a magical - or technological - wand and make everything better, or that things haven't been happening to Creation. But if we only work inside the system, then however much we change it we'll have to face it's limits. I'm happy to work with Creation, but, well, to play devil's advocate,>" and how very appropriate that is, "<The Scarlet Empress kept Creation stable, but the stability she kept was still one of decay. She stopped the Balorian Crusade, but the Wyld still eats away at the edges of the world.>" He pauses, considering but finally continuing a little more slowly, "<And whatever you might say about those changes, I say that it was still stagnation; just because something finally fell down doesn't mean that the termites weren't eating away for a long time. Creation isn't the same as Earth; it's picking up the pieces from disaster, and unlike Earth that isn't enough when angry ghosts want to unmake the world. Besides, I might characterize it as like China, where they could have had an industrial revolution for centuries, but valued stability and unchanging, um, ness, too much.>"

"<But I'll still accept the point, and I wouldn't stake the world on being China instead of Europe, or vice-versa. Creation isn't falling back on its own so much as it's unable to resist the pressures on it. Not so much a stagnation as we might think of it as a losing battle. Still not much prettier, I suppose... I'd rather agitate for some cultural change than support a war just because people don't want to think in ways their grandfathers didn't, though. I'd rather figure out how to make guns in a spider-run world than see it eaten by faeries. Maybe we can even build some new jade spider things and start reclaiming what was lost!... Not for a while, perhaps. But we should start. Right?>" Orchid slumps back in his seat slightly as the adrenaline of ideas and thinking starts to drain back again, leaving him equally drained. "<I'm not saying we need to go out there and take over Gem right now or anything. We don't have to be stupid, or impulsive. But I do say we should make a start as soon as we have a feasible plan we can all agree on.>"

"<And as for you, Sparrow... I'd like to offer a pact. You won't tell Heaven about this yet, and I won't inform the people I work with. We can tell them later, but I think for now we both need to think about it as individuals, without our respective bosses yelling at us.>" He glances at Raziel, and smiles a little at Amelia... "<In fact, maybe that should go for all of us. The Silver Pact doesn't need to know, and especially the Realm doesn't need to know, nobody does until we know how we feel about this. Then we can decide who to tell.>" Melodies, well, he can think up something to tell Melodies. Maybe reminiscing about Earth, with a few possible intelligence leaks for his coadjutor to worry about, but nothing major enough to stand out.

[Recaiden]

The waiter returns, awkwardly carrying the order on non-pizza trays.
He then sets down four large Chicago-style pizzas and one glass of water. The pizzas look rather sloppily made, and the meat isn't what one would get in Chicago, but they're passable.
"I hope you enjoy your meal."

[LauWren]

Amelia blinks. This doesn't look like a pizza she'd get back home, or in Chicago, but it doesn't just look like one from someone who was guessing, and doesn't even really look like someone who'd only heard of it. It looked like someone who knew who happened to be working with not-quite-right ingredients... Was someone else from Earth? Were they not the first?

"Thank you," Amelia says, barely remembering to switch to Flametongue. She shakes off the feeling of familiarity. Either she's wrong, and this is another part of the whole run-on-tropes bit, or as she said, people who want to come out of the woodwork will. Especially given that anyone who spoke English would probably pick up the fact that they were all speaking English, and would presumably continue to do so, given that they shared no other language.

I just hope we aren't missing, say, someone who speaks only Italian. Or Chinese.

Amelia picks up her water and nods. She's not entirely sure she's following everything, but one step closer to the idea of "modern" in the view of a bunch of people from her world with these accents is probably going to mean less slavery. "<That sounds reasonable. I'll agree to it if you all will.>" Not that she'd exactly been planning to go out and tell someone, but throwing support in with one's side never hurts.

Amelia waits to say anything further until everyone else responds.

[Leliel]

<"...Hm? Oh, yes, that would be a good plan.">

<"But just as importantly, does anyone find it...odd that the chef knew what a pizza was?">

[LauWren]

"<Yes. In that vein, does anyone speak another Earth-language, in case we run into someone from somewhere else? I've got enough Spanish to get any odd terms defined.>"

[Tavar]

Sorry, I took Latin to get out of foreign languages. I have a minuscule amount of French, but that's it.
Wing isn't focused on the conversation, though. He's watching the the server, to see where the kitchen is.
The fact they understood our order is very disturbing, though. I could check out the back, if no one has a problem with that.

[Rhyvurg]

"<If we can find way to...accelerate our growth, I'm the only one of us who could get in position to take over the Realm outright. And, while this place is different than Earth, we do have the memories of our hosts, we are not totally ignorant. I think our first objective should be to gather knowledge, find this world's secrets, then find the best way to use that to our advantage.>"

[LauWren]

"<Latin might be useful, actually, if the other person happens to speak it as a second language. Or, if they've been around long enough, a first. And no problem here,>" Amelia adds, deliberately throwing an absent-minded tone into the last few words and looking around the restaurant as if bored. <Hello there. Any repeats from our last escapade? Oh, and if you happen to be a mindreader, we're friendly.>

[Tavar]

Well then, if you'll excuse me for a moment. If I'm not back as myself soon enough, try ordering something else from home. See if it gets a reaction. This last part is said in a whisper, no need to let listeners know what'd going on.

Getting up, Wing heads out of the restaurant, looking for a deserted alley or nook. After making sure there are no observers, he changes. Soon a rather unremarkable cat sneaks back around into the back of the kitchen, content to observe what happens.

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Perception+Awareness to know if anyone's watching before I transform(9d10)[7][6][8][1][3][7][9][8][8](57)

Stealth+Dex roll to remain unnoticed, not including any bonuses from the animal's shape, or the Dex. Can't find the stats for a normal Cat's Dex:(4d10)[26]

[Recaiden]

The kitchen is around the corner of a thin wall to the left and down an aisle, easy fro Wing to find. No one is watching him other than people at his own table, at least so far as he notices.
And the cat successfully sneaks into the kitchen with only a glance or so from patrons. No one gives it a second thought.
In the kitchen, there are a few ovens and stoves and pots and plates and sinks and knives and four people. The place is rather dimly lit by a chandelier with a loop of chain keeping it raised high to the ceiling.
Two of the people are currently preparing food, one a pot of soup and another chopping vegetables.
The third is the server who was at Wing's table who is being questioned in low voices by the same woman who was spotted by Amelia earlier.

No one responds to the telepathic message. The food is fine. Go ahead and eat it.

[Tavar]

Wing moves closer, stopping once he is close enough to hear them. Then he begins grooming himself while he listens in.

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If I need to, Perception+Awareness check to listen in(9d10)[1][3][4][8][3][1][6][8][7](41)

[aetherialDawn]

Orchid happily eats some of the very-nearly-pizza. He's not particularly worried about poison, at least, and it's clearly not bad cooking either. So long as Wing is checking what's going on in the kitchen, it ought to be safe, though it would be nice to have his own excuse to look around...

"<If you're all so worried, I could just glance around for any active charms I can see. If the pattern holds up and it is another Earthling, then they're probably also Exalted.>"

[Recaiden]

Assuming anyone has active charms even if they are here. Not that I'm saying they don't. Or that anyone is here. Or that anyone isn't.

Wing is able to listen in. The server is being asked about what the group looked like and what they said in Flametongue and he's answering fairly well.

[Tavar]

Wing will wait where he is, continuing to groom himself, unless the questioning woman leaves, in which case he'll follow her.

[Recaiden]

That won't be long, given the English restricting her information. She'll thank the server and leave the kitchen, taking a seat at a table that just so happens to face the party, and lifting up a menu to hide behind.